


Learning Through Anomalies

by Kyte_VaNa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Barista Tsukishima Kei, Bassist Tobio, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, band au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25546849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyte_VaNa/pseuds/Kyte_VaNa
Summary: Tsukishima Kei just wants to stay in his bubble of normalcy and mediocrity in order to not stand out. Kageyama Tobio just wants to learn the ways to get through to people without accidentally coming off as aggressive.Kei doesn’t want to entertain the anomalous events happening in his life; Tobio embraces them, or tries to at least.They don’t learn from each other, but it’s a close thing.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Learning Through Anomalies

All things considered, Kei thinks that his day starts out to be pretty normal: He wakes up at his usual time at 7 in the morning, fixes his bed and double checks his homework for the day before hopping in the shower and washing the last dredges of sleep away. He eats frosted cornflakes with strawberry milk for breakfast as he browses through his phone, replying to his best friend’s enthusiastic good morning text with a curt greeting of his own. He washes his dishes before brushing his teeth and begins dressing up, making sure to be warm enough for the slightly chilly weather outside brought by the last of summer’s rain.

Class is pretty normal too. He arrives 10 minutes before his professor comes. He’s a diligent student although he doesn’t like to stand out much academically. He submits well-made papers on time and answers correctly when called, but he doesn’t go out of his way to hoard all of his professors’ attention from all the other students in class.

The rest of his school day is pretty normal, all things considered.

But as is the life of Tsukishima Kei, nothing ever really goes the way he wants to, not fully at least. The series of anomalies start when the owner of the small, family owned coffee shop he works at left them to meet with suppliers two towns over. That means he, along with his best friend Yamaguchi, and the other employees are responsible for keeping the place in neat working order.

Kei is fine with that, this is not the first time the owner left them to their own devices while on the job, although he’s a little worried for the newbie waitress who stumbles just a little too much while handling trays filled with hot drinks. Good thing it’s not a busy day today, she doesn’t look like she will work well in a high-tension environment.

The next thing that goes wrong is when their only electric coffee bean grinder suddenly stopped working. He feels his brows come together for a frown, he’s tempted to press at the grind button harder, maybe the machine just needed more push to work. He clicks his tongue when nothing happens. He slaps the side of the machine, hoping it will do something.

It didn’t unsurprisingly.

“Is something wrong with the grinder, Tsukki?” asks his best friend from behind. Kei twists to turn to Yamaguchi who stares curiously at the machine and at Kei’s exasperated face.

“It suddenly stopped working,” he says. Yamaguchi hums thoughtfully before approaching said machine. He leans in and pats it on its side checking for something.

“Hm, it’s not warm… huh.” He says dubiously, humming as he pats the machine all over once more.

“So it didn’t overheat?”

Yamaguchi huffs a breath from his nose and shakes his head no, his eyebrows are scrunched as he assesses the faulty machine. He turns to look back at Kei.

And it’s one thing after the other, as the next anomaly begins to take place. Kei has a feeling that all the hiccups that happens on a regular day is jamming themselves into the next two hours of today to make his life even more difficult than it already is.

“Would you mind manning the cashier for a bit Tsukki? I’ll just check if the beans just got stuck or something. We haven’t cleaned this yesterday so…” Yamaguchi trails off, resignation coloring his voice.

Alarm bells start ringing in Kei’s mind. It’s not as if he hasn’t been cashier before, and he knows how to operate the register anyways, he just doesn’t like people all that much. Kei looks up to stare at the digital clock placed just above the menu board overhead: 18:30, it reads. 1 and a half hours before his shift is done. He scans the shop and the people passing by outside; it’s not terribly busy, just enough to keep things bustling comfortably.

Kei takes his place at the cashier, exhaling through his nose. At least he doesn’t have to call the owner to report the problem, Yamaguchi can _probably_ fix the grinder. Hopefully it doesn’t take him too long, Kei doesn’t want to use the manual grinder as much as possible. No one has come in the shop for an hour now, the last one was Taniguchi-san, an elderly lady who always ends her walks at the café to sip at Darjeeling tea while reading the daily newspaper.

_Maybe no other customers will come before the grinder gets fixed, or cleaned._

As always, things never go as one wishes, especially to one Tsukishima Kei. As soon as the thought made itself known to him, the most dreadful anomaly of the day made itself known. The heavy oak door creaks open, triggering the jingle of the bells placed just above the door frame. Kei frowns momentarily, before remembering that he is still on the job and he’s the one currently taking the orders, he straightens his expression into a passive stare.

“Welcome!” greets Yachi, the new waitress.

“Yachi-san!?”

“Hinata-kun?”

“I didn’t know you work here!”

“Hehe I just started yesterday!”

Kei looks over to the person that came in. Well, persons. Yachi is talking to a short orange haired guy, presumably this is the ‘Hinata-kun’. They’re talking animatedly to each other, it’s not enough to be considered a ruckus but Kei prefers to get his job done and over with so people who take too much time before they order always grates on his nerves just a little bit.

The other person that came in is heads taller than Yachi’s friend and Yachi herself. He’s not partaking in the conversation and he’s glaring at the surroundings, as if everything in the shop offends him. Kei decides that he doesn’t like him one bit and he dreads giving his best customer service smile to the pair of annoyances. (it’s really not a smile, Yamaguchi argues, just his passive face. “At least I’m not frowning,” “just try to smile a bit Tsukki!”…”Not like that, you look like you’re intimidating them away or trying to piss them off!”)

He counts to two minutes before clearing his throat loud enough to be heard to the front. He’s not frowning but it’s close. Three heads turn to look at him and Yachi squeaks in surprise when she realizes what it’s about.

“Ah! Right, work! You guys should order!” She prompts hastily, guiding the pair of customers towards Kei’s counter.

“What can I get you?” Kei says monotonously almost immediately. His sight already on the keys of the old cashier computer. He waits for a minute, and then two. He only manages to suppress the click of his tongue last minute as he brings his gaze back to the gawking pair in front of him.

“What are you getting, Kageyama?”

“Why are you asking me stupid, aren’t you the one who wants to go here in the first place?”

“You’re not getting coffee?” Hinata shrieks as he whips his head to meet Kageyama’s gaze. Kei tries to stay calm.

“What? No. Why would I get coffee?” Kageyama frowns, Hinata makes an affronted noise, Kei just wants a hole to open up on the ground under him and take him.

“Because you’re in a coffee shop stupid!” Hinata argues.

“Yachi-san!” Yachi almost trips with a tray full of empty cups and saucers as Hinata calls her name. Thankfully it was just a small stumble. Yachi places the tray on the side of the counter carefully, relieving herself from the heavy ceramics.

“What is it Hinata-kun?”

“What do you recommend we get? It’s our first time in a coffee shop so we don’t know what to get,” he admits, shoving the small menu board from its place in front of the cashier to Yachi’s face.

Kei exhales through his nose as he fights the urge to put his hands on his hips, or cross his arms on his chest, or rub the bridge of his nose in irritation.

“Oh uhh… I’m not really a coffee drinker so I wouldn’t know,” she says taking the menu board from Hinata’s hands and scanning it.

“Eh, but you work here?” Hinata points out, confusion coloring his voice.

“Yeah, but I’m a wait staff I don’t do the drinks, and I don’t handle caffeine very well,” she smiles sheepishly and places the board back on the sleeve attached on the cashier. She meets Kei’s eyes. Kei sees the way hers light up in realization and he’s not liking where this direction is going.

“Tsukishima-kun is one of our baristas, he’s been working here for a few months I bet he’ll have something to recommend to you guys,” She says this while keeping eye contact with Kei’s own increasingly alarmed eyes.

“Ah, I have to take these to the kitchen, be right back!” she exclaims hurriedly taking the tray back into her arms with gargantuan effort as she carefully maneuvers towards the kitchen.

Kei suddenly feels so alone. He feels like that kid next in line to the cashier of the supermarket while his mom left him to get mayonnaise five aisles away.

“Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?” Kei has to snort (internally) at the address. Two pairs of intense eyes lock onto him and Kei’s trying hard to not feel unnerved.

“I don’t know what to get, what do you think we should get?” the shorter one asks. For someone two heads shorter than Kei, he can’t help but feel like he’s being scrutinized by the piercing gaze. It irritates him.

“We? I told you I’m not getting anything,” Kageyama interrupts in a grumble before Kei can even get any recommendations out (he’ll just tell them to get French press coffee; grind enough for two cups, put it in the press, stir it, let it steep, etc. etc, and just serve it with a few packets of creamer and sugar. Less hassle on his part.)

“But you have to get something! How would you write the paper if you’re not getting anything?”

“I’ll just buy from the vending machine,”

“But professor Sato said we need to find something unique and local! And nothing mass produced!” Hinata exclaims, pointing a stern finger in Kageyama’s face. The brooding teen frowns even harder, his lips jutting out in a pout as he brings his attention to the big menu plastered on the wall behind Kei.

What Kei gathers is that this event is an anomaly for them too. He feels slightly comforted by that because that means that he won’t likely see the two of them again in this café once he gets rid of them after this.

“If you guys aren’t used to drinking coffee or anything with caffeine, I’d just recommend you get a basic latte,” he suggests finally. This brings the squabbling pair to look at him.

“Oh a latte! That’s a good one, you can also make latte art don’t you Tsukishima-kun?” Yachi’s voice startles Kei as she emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands with a clean towel. Kei squints.

“I only know how to do the basic designs,” he grumbles and Yachi hums in glee.

“The one you served to Hazama-san earlier had a pretty design!” she gushes as she makes her way back to the other side of the counter.

“It’s just a simple fern pattern,” he sighs.

“What’s that?” Kageyama asks and Kei has to gawk at him in disbelief at the question.

“You don’t know what a latte is?” If his boss was here, or if Yamaguchi was here, he’d get an earful later about proper customer handling and engagement. But as it is, Kei just wants the anomalies of the day to finally end, you really can’t fault him for being a little rough on his customers, especially if your customers are the likes of the two blundering idiots in front of him.

Kageyama shakes his head, his eyebrows never relaxing their frown, Kei is starting to believe that’s just how he looks like and he doesn’t actively hate on everything he sets his eyes on. The thought just makes Kageyama’s presence even more irritating for him.

“A latte is an espresso shot with lots of steamed milk!” Yachi explains enthusiastically and Kei has to wonder at the excited gleam that suddenly appeared on Kageyama’s eyes. He goes rigid as he scans the menu board again, assuming he’s trying to find the listing for latte.

“Oooo… then what is latte art?” pipes in Hinata and Kei truly has to wonder how these two are currently alive.

“It’s a pretty design on top of the latte! You see, you put the coffee and then stream a little bit of the milk in and then you move as you pour and the milk foam forms into a shape! It’s really cool, the owner makes it so well… ah but Tsukishima-kun can make it really well too!” Yachi blurts out giving Kei a placating smile.

It’s not that Kei’s bad at latte art nor is he exceptionally good at it. Ever since he started working at the café making latte art has been part of his normal. The owner drilled the skill to him in two months’ time before he can even make a proper heart. He’s been told to practice the rosetta a month prior and he’s only getting the hang of it now.

He sees the two exchange looks, as if having a silent agreement. Kei dreads his existence.

“We’ll get two lattes please! With the latte art!” Hinata exclaims, his voice on the verge of being too shouty for comfort.

Kei might have punched the keys on the cashier a little too hard as he inputs their orders.

“That will be 660 yen total,” he says.

Kei has to take a deep breath in once he sees Hinata bring out a coin purse absolutely bursting at the seams and then taking out a handful of 10 yen coins before dumping it on the counter.

“So how much is it per cup?” He asks, not taking his eyes away from the mess he’s made.

“…330 yen per cup,” at this point Kei would not entertain disbelief anymore and just take whatever is happening. The sooner he gets over this the sooner it’ll be done. He watches Hinata start to count his coins, he doesn’t even stack it neatly, no, he separates 33 pieces of 10 yen coins from his pile into a smaller but messier pile and then pushes it in Kei’s direction. Kei wordlessly sweeps the coins from the counter onto his hand and counts; it’s exactly 330 yen, he huffs lightly in relief, at least he can count, Kei thinks. He opens the cashbox and dumps the coins into their appropriate slot.

Kageyama then slides a 5000 yen note on the counter and Kei has to raise an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Do you have a smaller bill, sir?” he drawls as he clenches and unclenches his fists.

“No.”

Kei stares at the bank note and at the owner of said note for a few seconds before opening the cashbox again, painstakingly counting the 4670 yen change (mostly in coins), stacking it neatly before sliding the change back to the customer.

Kageyama frowns at the stack of coins on the table and the lone 1000 yen note but does not complain as he pockets his change, not even bothering counting it.

“Alright, your orders will come up in a few minutes, please do take a seat, our wait staff will bring you your orders to your table later,” Kei mutters as he turns around to finally make the drinks. He heaves a breath of relief once he sees the two squabbling menaces turn to find seats.

He looks around and Yamaguchi is still not in sight, he frowns.

“Yachi-san, have you seen Yamaguchi?”

Yachi hums thoughtfully. “He’s in the kitchen cleaning out the grinder last I checked,” she replies before excusing herself to clean a recently vacant table. Kei clicks his tongue. He could wait for his friend to come back with a finally functioning grinder and have the idiots wait for their order, but that means they’ll be in the shop longer than necessary.

Kei sighs as he crouches to open a cabinet for manual tools and takes out the grinder and scale. He begins to prepare the coffee by first weighing out the beans and then (reluctantly) grinding them manually, packing them neatly onto the basket of the portafilter once he’s satisfied with the grind size. Kei works swiftly, not wasting movement and working efficiently.

As the espresso machine is doing its thing Kei then started steaming the milk until scalding to the touch, tapping it on the counter and checks the foam volume. It could use some more foam but it’ll have to do, he can _try_ to re-steam it but… the imposing figure of the owner appears in his mind at the thought (“Tsukishima! Stop burning the milk!” Kei scrunches his face). he’ll have to redo the whole thing and waste milk if he wants more foam. Nope, he can’t afford to waste milk.

Kei huffs from his nose as he taps the pitcher on the countertop again before getting one of the cups with the freshly brewed espresso. He tilts the cup ever so slightly, streaming the milk in carefully, making sure to leave enough room for the foam. He swings his hand lightly to make a pattern on top. It’s a simple leaf design, a fern essentially. It’s nothing groundbreaking, he thinks. But well, looking at it, this might be the best fern he’s ever made. He shrugs as he puts it on a saucer once he’s done then gets to work on the other cup. This time he tries for a fern with a heart tip. He’s not ambitious by all means but he guesses variety can add a little bit more elegance to the otherwise inelegant pair of buffoons sitting (and still arguing) at the booth near the window.

He likes doing the fern more than the heart, admittedly. It’s fun to wiggle the pitcher in small movements then gliding it across to cut it to make the shape.

He motions Yachi over once he’s done. He places the saucers on the tray along with a small jar of brown sugar and two teaspoons.

“Oh these designs are so cute, Tsukishima-kun! This may be your best fern yet!” she compliments while nodding, appreciating the designs on top. She gives him a smile before lifting the tray and bringing it over to the pair.

Kei glances a look at the closed kitchen door and outside. It doesn’t look like anyone would be coming in. He turns to look at the clock overhead; 19:00 it reads; Kei frowns.

He hears the kitchen door creak open. Yamaguchi comes out with a pristine looking coffee grinder, empty of the beans of course. He sets it down next to the espresso machine with a huff.

“That took you long enough,” Kei comments offhandedly and Yamaguchi on gives him a grin.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi takes notice of the manual grinder sitting on the side. “You made coffee?”

“Just two lattes. It’s not too hard,” Kei mutters as he opens the cupboards to get the bag of beans and hands it to his friend.

“Thanks,” Yamaguchi gets to filling the container with the beans. “You hate using the manual grinder though?” he side-eyes Kei at his question.

“It’s no big deal,” Kei frowns. It’s not as if he’s such a wimp that he can’t even grind some coffee beans. He simply doesn’t like expending more energy when there’s something that could make his life easier.

He sets to start cleaning up the things he used as Yamaguchi returns to the cashier.

“Why is there so many 10 yen coins?” Yamaguchi stares in disbelief at the filled slot when he opens the register. “Someone decided to pay for a latte with only 10 yen coins,” Kei replies simply as he dumps the used grinds into the compost bin.

A few more minutes pass by without new customers coming in. Yamaguchi sets about counting the day’s sales just to get an idea for the final count later. Kei makes sure that his workstation is sparkling clean to spend his time.

Kei notices an imposing shadow in his periphery and raises his head only to be met with Kageyama’s irritating scowl. Kei suppresses a scowl of his own from appearing.

“If you want to order something the cashier is over there if you haven’t noticed,” He tries to sound casual but fails to hide some bite in his tone. He sees Yamaguchi turn to him slightly with an arc of his brow as he’s tending to a new customer’s order.

“No, I—” Kageyama frowns as he bows his head to stare at his shoes. Kei crosses his arms.

“I wanted to say that the coffee was good, thank you,” with an abrupt 90 degree bow, Kageyama rises, frowns, nods, and promptly leaves the shop.

The anomalous sentence is not anomalous by any means. Kei gets compliments with his coffee making skills quite a bit but the way he was approached for it and not to mention the way the other teen said it to him is the biggest anomaly that ever happened in his day, or maybe even week (it’s a close second to the time the owner spilled three types of freshly delivered coffee beans on the floor and they had to clean it up and sort it by type last Tuesday. It took them 3 hours complete the task.)

Kei stares slack-jawed at the door. His cognitive abilities are doing their best to comprehend the event that happened but for some reason he can’t grasp it fully in understanding.

“Tsukki!” He’s brought out of his trance by Yamaguchi who’s waving a hand in his face.

“Are you ok? I’ve been calling you for a while. I need a horchata,” Kei nods at his friend wordlessly as he begins making the aforementioned drink. Once done he places the drink on the tray which then Yachi takes to serve.

“Who was that?” comes Yamaguchi’s voice. Kei hums inquisitively, staring at the chip on the front door’s hinges.

“The guy that looks like he was about to murder you but then thanks you,” Yamaguchi clarifies. Kei sighs as he brings his attention to his curious friend.

“I don’t even know him. He’s a customer, a café first timer of sorts, I just made him a latte. I don’t know why he was compelled to thank me like that,” He explains. Yamaguchi hums but does not press the matter further.

The day ends without much fanfare (and Kei thanks the heavens for that), he stops at the nearest convenience store to buy onigiri for his dinner and then goes home to his studio apartment a few blocks away from the café and the university. He eats his onigiri, showers, does his homework, then prepares for bed. All the while the anomalous compliment keeps haunting his thoughts. Kei doesn’t know what to make of his thoughts, nor does he really want to know.

Kei sleeps fitfully; images of a terrifying scowl, intense blue eyes, and the echoes of a sincere compliment haunts his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> I am back with writing! (i guess lmao). i finally retired my 8 year old laptop for a new one and who knew getting a new properly working laptop can make me want to write again lmao. Anyways TsukiKage uwu. find me on twt at @KyteVaNa!! (i don't post much lmao)


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